My head is buzzing, I think. 

Not the type of buzzing that comes from a substance or a loud noise, or even too much ear wax like when I was seven. My head is physically buzzing. The sensation is enough to force my eyes open, but I remain with one cheek glued to the silky fabric of my pillow.

I reach a sole hand underneath the cushion and grab for my phone, using the incessant vibration it's producing as a guide. I curse at it, and at my best friend for calling me at six thirty on a Saturday morning.

I ignore the call, and the five texts that accompany it. Even though each one claims an emergency, I've known Gabriella Brown long enough to know that she struggles to identify the size of a problem, and her reactions never quite match.

I lay my phone on the empty space of my mattress beside me and roll back over. I close my eyes again. Not to try and catch more sleep, even though the four hours I did get wasn't nearly enough, but to try to resume the dream I was having. I can still picture it clearly in my head.

As if Adam Sandler himself lent me his special time warping remote, I move back to the beginning until I can hear the creaks of the door hinges as they slowly open. As if I were still fast asleep, I feel my mattress shift under the new pressure applied to its edge from the weight of her body. The nerve endings along my jaw tingle and tickle as she brushes a stray curl out of my face.

Every single action is so familiar, so automatic, they feel like breathing. I wait quietly for her to say something, anything. I would even settle for her yelling at me for stealing her favorite lipstick again. I wouldn't even argue back and tell her the color looks better on me.

I would just take it if it meant hearing her voice again. But just like before Gabi's phone call woke me the first time, the dream stops there. The image frozen on the screen in my mind is a mute shadow of my imagination in the shape of my mother smiling down at me. No amount of pleading or good behavior rewards me with even a single word.

It feels like my brain has waged a war where betrayal is the goal. A cease of fire can only be reached when I fully accept that maybe I can't conjure up the words because I forget the cadence of how her words would sound as they leave her mouth.

"Ryn!" I hear my father yell from the other side of my door. "Ryn, you need to move! Big day!" His words are accompanied by a double clap, a signature that I have never appreciated in the past. Today is no different.

I mumble a response that must sounds a little too like my intended words of, "Fuck off," because my father bursts through the door a moment after.

"Excuse me?" he asks.

"Can you please stop yelling. I'm fighting a massive hangover and the octave of your voice is paining me."

"Your jokes are never funny, Camryn. Now get up and get dressed. Breakfast is in the kitchen."

"Who said it was a joke?" I mutter to the slab of the door my father left cracked open, another signature that is never welcome. He truly thinks that little sliver of hallway light peering in will be the thing to stop me from executing my master plan to permanently ruin myself as if I'm the type to sit in bed and shoot up my daily dose of heroin.

I roll from my side to my back and stare up at my ceiling, willing the stars painted there to help wake me.

I trace over the constellations, making my eyes work until they are wide open. My eyes are exactly how I assume someone who does heroin would feel. The lids are drooping with sleep and threaten to snap shut as I trace Ursa Major for the third time. I push onward and continue to connect the dots, finding each shimmering star and drawing a fictitious line between them before bouncing back to the beginning and restarting.

My phone vibrates just as my dad begins to yell for me again. I stay still, and continue to move through the motions of tracing. It's muscle memory at this point, I've done this every morning since the stars were painted there shortly after we moved into this house.

If I'm lucky enough, today might be the last day I ever have to. Today, I get to play a fugitive on the run. I haven't committed a crime, per say, but I do get the chance to start over, to reinvent myself.

Moving into my college dorm isn't the breakout, life changing event I was hoping for in my transformation, but it's a starting point. Like the star Alkaid that marks the beginning of the Big Dipper. It's not quite the brightest star in the sequence, but all constellations have to start somewhere.

Today is my Alkaid, a starting point on the map of my life. Unlike the star set into place thousands of years ago, I can pick up my beginning like a little red pin. I can already feel the weight of it in my hands as I inch it further along towards the destination I really have in mind.

I audibly count to seven before forcing my arms to push me further up in bed.

My hands drag down my face as I'm met with the aftermath of falling asleep mid sketch. At least a dozen freshly ripped pages from my sketchbook litter my comforter. I pick one up and study it, using the flashlight on my phone—even, to illuminate it further. But it doesn't change my interpretation of the black and gray streaks across the page.

Each swirl of the charcoal is empty of meaning and translates as forced, which they are. I don't know what type of sadistic joke my grandma was trying to play by giving me the supplies knowing damn well that it would provide me with nothing but wasted time and energy. She's almost as bad as my father when it comes to manifesting her wants for me.

And reminding me that I hold no physical artistic talent is her way of trying to push me back to my camera. Or at the very least it's an attempt to force me to share my art with her again.

I'm "The Who" and she's a fan waiting for a reunion tour.

My sigh drowns out the sound of my father yelling for me yet again. I flip the covers off my legs, not bothering to move any of the papers before I do. A few fly through the air like paper airplanes before crashing onto the floor.

I don't bother to pick up the pieces. It's not like I plan to reexamine them to see where things went wrong, to search for any salvageable pieces. I never do.

Instead, I get to my feet and slide them into my slippers before maneuvering around the wreckage and into my attached bathroom.

My phone starts pinging again, the chime rapidly firing off. Lifting the screen from the counter I see seven new message notifications. Gabi is relentless when she's in crisis mode.

I wish my annoyance was stemmed from something as simple as too caps locked messages. But it's something more deeply seated than that. Regardless of recent choices she's made, my choices weren't left up to me.

My phone buzzes again, forcing it to shift around the counter, before nearly falling off. This time I give in and answer.

"Helloooo?"

"Oh shew, you are alive! Thanks for responding to my texts! Please tell me your dad isn't being as annoying as my parents this morning. Mom has cried three times while making me breakfast because it's the last. Like ohmygosh we are just helping move C in, I don't even leave until Monday. She's acting like we've been drafted or something! So totally annoying!" Gabi is always a bit on the dramatic side, but she gets it honestly from the aforementioned mother.

"There hasn't been a draft since 1972 and women weren't subjected to it," I say flatly, hitting the speakerphone button and returning the phone to the counter.

"Why am I not surprised that you know that?" It's amazing how the shrewdness in her voice still translates clearly, even through such a tiny speaker.

"I haven't ventured downstairs yet, but I imagine that my dad is almost finished setting up the projector screen for his powerpoint presentation about One Hundred Reasons Why Living at Home Would Be The Best Decision For Everyone." I contort my voice until it's deep and naturally hoarse like my father's.

Gabi reminds me in a shrill tone to be ready in an hour, when she and her parents are set to pick me up.

I turn on my favorite playlist as I continue to get ready for the day. I slip on the clothes I left out for this morning before moving to manage the mop of curls on my head.

I do my best to rake them back with my fingers before twisting them into place with a claw clip. It's not my best work, considering it only accentuates the fact that my roots are severely outgrown and my natural honey brown hair threatens to reclaim its territory.

I don't even bother with makeup although the dark circles under my eyes beg me to. I ignore my reflection and continue to move through my routine before packing up the rest of my toiletries and heading downstairs.

The Quinn's are very goal oriented people, a fact I'm reminded of the second my feet hit the wood flooring at the bottom of the stairs. My father's voice drifts down the hallway, a terse tone probably directed at his assistant for scheduling back to back meetings that will cut into the amount of time he can spend casting disdain over me today.

I can only assume it's the same disdain that is the reason my father is even still home and not in his office getting pissy with his staff in person. I can smell it, figuratively and physically. The air is thick with sugar and the smoky smell of a dark roast coffee.

It's his last ditch effort to really drive his argument home. To show me what I'll be missing once I step beyond our front doors and towards the future I want. I'm nearly to the kitchen when my father rounds the corner and begins to shout towards me. His tone shifts when he spots me.

"It's about time," he huffs under his breath as I shoulder past him. "Coffee is in the pot." The bags under my eyes must be more noticeable than I originally thought. "We need to get your things down here, the Brown's will be here soon." He doesn't bother to finish his sentence while he's still next to me. Instead he is once again shouting from the next room.

I ignore his words, but can't help the grunt that escapes me as soon as I see the attempt he's made this morning.
A single white box sits on the white marble. The top of the box is marked with the price, but nothing else. It wouldn't take a seasoned professional to determine that it's from the French bakery a few miles from our house. It's my favorite, but considering my father doesn't eat anything with added sugar, I doubt he has ever stepped foot inside the establishment before today.

I ignore the peace offering and grab a ceramic mug from the cabinet above the coffee maker. I add two creams and two sugars before pouring the dark liquid on top and mixing it with a spoon.

I give myself a few sips before my curiosity gets the best of me. Just as I predicted, there are at least six different types of fluffy breads and flaky pastries neatly packed like a tetris puzzle to fit snugly in the cardboard.

I pluck the note resting on top of the yeasty goodness. My father's neat handwriting fills several lines with the name of each item in the box and a small description. I can picture him standing at the counter with the owner, Celine, forcing her to repeat herself until the words translated through her thick accent into something he could understand. Ryan Quinn can never pass up a chance to be precise, and a table of contents for carbs that he doesn't approve of me eating is the perfect proof.

I crumble the list up and throw it onto the counter next to the box as I scan my choices. I don't need the swirling letters of his cursive to tell me I'm choosing the chocolate croissant.

I carefully place the pastry on a plate and pop it into the microwave for twelve seconds. When it beeps, I retrieve it and lather the surface with butter before retreating to the table housed in the nook to the left of the kitchen.

I sip my coffee first, willing the caffeine to dilute my veins as I watch the butter slowly melt and make its way into each crevice of the pastry.

"And you're sure that you are okay that I can't be there?" My dad yells from his office.

The question is a formality for him. His tone holds no sincerity. Instead the words are part of a script. It's a scene we've practiced far too many times before. He's a man playing the concerned father, torn between his two roles. There is a tinge of guilt in his voice, but if I could see his face, the emotion wouldn't be reflected on it.

I casually shrug my shoulders and give my line, "Of course. Training camp wouldn't exactly work without the coach, would it?"

My dad finally walks back into the room, giving me a tight lipped smile as he does. I only nod and take a sip of my coffee to avoid having to say anything else. I study him as he makes his own cup of coffee, black, of course. He lifts his mug to his lips as he scrolls on his phone and types out a few messages.

I knew—even without seeing him this morning—he would be wearing red. His regimented lifestyle revolves around the semblance of fewer choices in his daily life that could distract him from the demands of his work life. So, he opts for red on Saturday's, game day or not. He's a busy man and can't be tasked with such trivial things like choosing what to wear each day.

For as long as I can remember it's been white on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, black on Tuesday and Sunday, and the signature Bulldog red on Saturday.

"Yikes, Ryn," My brother spits towards me, pulling me from my inspection. Cal jumps back as he does, feigning feelings of terror from my appearance. He recovers instantaneously by picking the croissant off my plate and finishing it in one bite.

I flip him off, but it does nothing to cease his judgment of me.

"First day of college or preschool?" Cal says, pointing to my blue jean overalls. I flip him off again, but this time I add a little more flair by adding, "Fuck off."

My father looks towards us but only mutters at me to watch my language. My brother laughs it off by telling me to lay off the T.

I continue to watch him sashay through the kitchen, gathering all the supplies he needs to make his breakfast of eggs. Cal doesn't even live here anymore, but it hasn't stopped him from eating almost every single meal here.

I wait for my father to say something to him about the mess he is making and not cleaning up, but his attention remains glued to his phone.

And my father wonders why his attempts to keep me under his roof are feeble. I imagine he thanks the Gods every single night for blessing him with a son like Callan Quinn right before praying that his only daughter finds her way.

Cal is the prodigy after all. The ideal offspring, doing what he's told when's told to do it. My father is quoted on several occasions attesting to the very idea. Callan is our father made over. From his looks and mannerisms, straight down to his ability to throw a football.

"And you're sure that this is what you want? You know you can live here and commute. I already told you I would buy you a new car if you wanted to stay here," My father says from the counter. It wasn't a matter of what the comment would be, but when it would come. We're standing in a hallway full of a series of doors each holding different lives beyond them. Every conversation here has been my dad's subtle way of trying to push me towards making the decision he deems best. The door he thinks I should open.

"I can't drive. So, a new car would be kind of pointless," I say as I take a sip from my mug. I watch my father over the rim, watching for the same exasperated look I know is coming.

"You can, you just choose not to. It would just make it easier. You can be here and I can make sur—" he begins, but I cut him off.

"For the millionth time, I finished therapy six months ago. Dr. Hartman thinks I'm ready. And we all agreed that it would be good for me to be a normal teenager."

Normal. It might be my most hated word. Mainly because there is nothing normal about my situation.

"Without my father hiding me," I add in a singsong voice under my breath as if it's a secret I don't want him to hear. But even if it's never been overtly stated, I don't think he would deny it. The fact that he doesn't trust me, comes out in as many different words and phrases that he can think of every time the topic has been brought up in recent months. Every string of words is missing the same thing though. The honest truth.

It leaves me to create my own meaning from the bullshit he spews my way. And the same conclusion is drawn every single time. A single memory drowning out any new convincing argument he tries to form.

"Just a minor incident, but we will be back on our feet in no time."

Fifteen simple words he uttered when he didn't think I was listening nearly two years before. The two clauses strung together in a way that became a motto for our family. A few simple syllables that would become a form of communication on their own. The Incident became a way to begin, or end, any conversation quickly. It allowed discussions to happen without actually saying anything at all.

An incident is nothing more than the occurrence of an undesired behavior. It shouldn't be this thing that continuously haunts me, and our family.

"A normal teenager would be dying to have their dad buy them a brand new car." My father's voice snaps me out of my trance. "You aren't a normal teenager Ryn. Did you know that over seventy percent of college freshmen experience some sort of mental distress? College is going to pressure you in a way you haven't experienced before," he says, now resting his palms flat on the counter. It's a stance that signifies how strongly he feels about his statement.

I roll my eyes in response to signify how strongly I feel about his statement.

"Thank you Dr. Phil, but I'm not some sort of addict so strung out that I lose all other capacities. I already agreed to go to State to be closer to you and Dr. Hartman...but if you think I am completely fine then maybe I should just transfer to Vanderbilt with Gabi," I snap back.

Nothing makes you feel more un-normal than your father pointing it out. I sometimes think that he wants this for me, to see me struggle to make progress. Although I've made strides, he still thinks mental health is a series of buttons in my head and that I just chose to press all the wrong ones. To him, I'm a masochist who derives all my enjoyment from causing myself pain.

"I want to be a part of your life Camryn, but you're my only daughter. It's my job to be protective." The sincerity in his tone is lost with one last glance in my direction before he leaves the room again. Conversation apparently over.

My father's words have a way of only simmering when they are left on the surface, but burning once they have the chance to be digested, translated into their true meaning. And like burned flesh, the mark they leave lingers even after the flame is no longer present.

Like The Incident, protective has been another favorite word choice coined by my father in recent years. At surface level, it's his way of manifesting his hopes and dreams for me but each layer that is pulled back brings questions of their own. Mostly in the form of how my father can control me if I'm no longer under his roof and watchful eye. More importantly however, is how my choices will somehow impact the very carefully curated public image my dad has worked his entire adult life to establish.

Those thoughts weren't rooted in The Incident though.They were planted before I was even born, but have since flourished through the fact that my father is the head football coach of the best football program in the country.

"If you're worried about being embarrassed by your children, you should look to your planned successor. He likes to fill his social media with less than stellar pictures and videos of his indiscretions!" I yell down the hallway as I make my exit from the kitchen.

I don't stick around to hear his response to my comment. The only thing more predictable than my fathers overwhelming disapproval of me, is his reaction to Cal. Which at the moment is nothing. I guess my father can say that he ignores his twins equally, but for different reasons.

"Gabi says they will be there around nine, so I should probably go carry my things down," I say to no one in particular.

I walk back upstairs and begin the process of grabbing my things, and to my surprise my brother comes into my room to help me. When all the big things have been carried down and neatly lined up against the wall of the foyer, he announces that he is leaving for campus, but not before wrapping his arm around my shoulder and giving me a kiss on the cheek.

I smack his hand away and glare in his direction.

As Cal is walking out the door, my dad's wife enters fresh from a run. Although the average person couldn't tell by simply looking at her. The auburn stands of her hair are pulled up into a ponytail covered by a Nike hat stamped with the State football logo. Her spandex shorts and sweat-wicking t-shirt are completely intact and unaffected from the half marathon I'm sure she just ran. The skin of her wrinkle free face barely glimmers with sweat. I hate her even more for it.

Using the fact that it's my last morning here for a while, I take the opportunity to have some fun.

"So Katie," I begin, taking a seat at the island as she fills a glass with water and sips it slowly. "The lack of wrinkles... it's because you're only twenty eight, right? Doesn't it bother you that your husband is almost double your age?" I lace my fingers together on the counter between us, plastering on my best smile.

"Oh Ryn, you're so funny!" She says barely smiling, definitely not laughing. "Did you know that your skin starts rapidly aging at twenty five due to a slow down in collagen production? Good sleep is the answer to so many problems!" She finishes her water in one big gulp and a smirk in my direction.

I guess I know where my dad's newfound mental health statistics are coming from. Katie's obsession with the health and wellness lane on social media is leaking into his life too.

She finishes her second glass of water before muttering something about today being the day. She doesn't elaborate, but I assume it's code for–the day I finally get rid of you!

Not that she lets me stop her from doing whatever the fuck she wants anyway. She will finally have my father to herself, at least. Not that I'm the one taking his time from her. That has, and will always be, football.

As my father comes back into the room and begins talking with Katie, I take my chance to escape. I head back towards the stairs to grab the last of my things. I grab my MacBook and shove it in my backpack, along with my phone, headphones, and my Kindle for the car ride.

I allow myself to take one last look around my room to make sure I haven't forgotten anything before I slip my arms through the loops of my bag.

As I make one more pass through the space I focus on the smaller details. Even when it felt like a prison cell, the icey square footage was still a sanctuary for me. For the last six years, and specifically the last two, this space has been the one thing that was mine. The refuge needed to weather a storm that felt eternal but continued to provide promise of brighter days.

If anything from therapy has imprinted on me, it's the overarching principle that you are responsible for the life you lead.

I haven't always liked my life. That's why I tried to escape it, but it wasn't like taking a vacation or putting headphones on and drowning out the world for hours.

No matter what my dad thinks, I agree with Dr. Hartman. This will be good for me.

A change of scenery and routine are a craving I've had for nearly two years. Today marks the day I get to indulge. A much needed respite from the stressors of this place.

College is about trying new things, and finding out who you're meant to be no matter how many tries you need to get there. It's why there is no limit on the amount of major changes you can make.

I let go of the breath I didn't know I was holding. Turning on my heels I head towards the door. If I were to capture this moment in a single frame the lens would zoom in to catch the motion of my hair as I swing myself around. The lyrics to "Unwritten" would be carefully quoted beneath it.